In order to continually improve the performance of a golf club, golf club designers are constantly searching for new and innovative ways make a golf club perform better. Although what constitutes better performance for golf club is debatable, the great popularity of the game of golf has required golf club designers to create a golf club that performs better for your average everyday golfer, who may not have the perfect golf game day in and day out.
It is worthwhile to recognize here that when your average golfer swings a golf club, he or she may not always have a replicable golf swing; often resulting in the golf club impacting the golf ball at different locations on the golf club face. Needless to say, it is difficult for any golf club to achieve consistent result when the impact between the golf club and the golf ball isn't consistent. Although this specific problem with impact consistency decreases with an increase in experience and skill level, it is something that even the best golfer will inevitably struggle with from time to time. Hence, in order to address this issue of inconsistency of impact that can lead to inconsistent performance, golf club designers need to come up with golf clubs that can minimize the undesirable effects from such off-center impact. U.S. Pat. No. 5,395,113 to Antonious provides one example of one of the earlier attempt to address this issue by providing an iron type golf club with a weight configuration that utilizes peripheral weights that extend around a rear surface of the club head. Without going into too much physics about the MOI of a golf club head as well as the CG location, the shifting of these weights shown by U.S. Pat. No. 5,395,113 address the problem of inconsistent impact by prohibiting the golf club head from twisting when it is struck off center.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,789,772 to Sukman provides another example of a methodology used to minimize the adverse effects of inconsistent impact by adjusting the thicknesses of various portions of the golf club head. More specifically, U.S. Pat. No. 7,789,772 discloses a golf club head comprising of a sink portion having a variation in heel-to-toe contour while maintaining a low-order front-to-rear contour resulting in an iron type golf club having a unique weighting distribution.
Although the above mentioned attempts to improve the performance of the golf club in terms of manipulating the thicknesses at various portions of the golf club head are admirable, they fail to take in consideration of the performance gains that are possible by using alternative materials having different densities that could accentuate the weighting affects. Recent golf club designers, in order to further improve the performance of a golf club head, have recognized the performance advantages that could be achieved using alternative materials by experimenting with materials having different densities. U.S. Pat. No. 6,814,674 to Clausen et al. illustrates one of the more recent attempts that incorporate different components to construct a golf club head. More specifically, U.S. Pat. No. 6,814,674 discloses three different components, a periphery member, a central member, and a face plate; all made out of different materials to improve the CG and MOI of the golf club head by creating more discretionary weight than previously possible.
Although these recent attempts at utilizing multiple materials having different material properties can dramatically increase the amount of discretionary weight, it does so at the expense of sacrificing the feel of a golf club head. Feel of a golf club head, although a difficult criteria to quantify, generally results from the capability of a golf club to feel solid upon impact with the golf ball. This type of solid feedback is generally achieved by having the golf club head formed out of a unitary solid structure, as the structural integrity of this type of unitary solid structure clubs allows the energy of the impact to be felt by a golfer in a consistent manner.
Hence, it can be seen from above, there exists a need for a golf club to provide a more even balance between forgiveness and feel. More specifically, there is a need in the field for a golf club head that utilizes a substantially uniform material throughout the body portion of the golf club head to maintain the feel that is generally associated with a solid golf club; all while pushing the boundaries of performance by creating the maximum discretionary weight that can be used to improve the MOI and CG location of the golf club head.